Another 15 tanks lost! The keystone cops are back in town.
16 consecutive propaganda posts to yourself...ROFL
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It’s another bad day for Z - the high heel dancer
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Massive wave of missile strikes. (from CNN unfortunately)
Russia has launched four cruise missiles at Ukraine from the Black Sea on Saturday, Two explosions were reported in the Ukrainian city of Khmelnytskyi on Saturday,One strike hit a military facility and the other hit near a public transport stop, the head of the regional military administration said in a Telegram post.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also addressed the attack-—He added that 10 regions of Ukraine have been damaged by Russian forces within the last day.
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Wagner Captures Paraskoviivka (Yahidne is being stormed)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_011QF2cVo
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daily update from neutral source DPA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoAlnNbTFTE
Ukraine: military situation update with maps, Feb 17, 2023
(’Orc’ is associated with the various hoards of 13th century Mongol invaders, as well as LOTR evil villains)
War in Ukraine Explained/Reporting from Ukraine:
https://www.youtube.com/@RFU
Artillery (key to success in this war), Fuller explanation of Orc military structure, Other Bonus articles - see previous postings in “Attack on Europe” (FR title search).
(Numbered printed material below - Some of the items below may be out of date, and not updated yet)
••Denotes Transcribed Dialogue. The entirety of the analysis is from a Ukrainian guy named Reporting from Ukraine’s daily video - I only transcribe it. Extras are just that - from other sites, or my comments marked (Edit: .... ) or { } or [ ].
-—> Current to date and past MAPS: <——
https://militaryland.net/
-—> The True State of Russian Army <——
posted 2 months ago, 21.13 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KiII_2qabk
———————————————————————————————————————
Extras:
-—> Ukraine Situation Report: Zelensky Gives Dire Warning To Munich Security Conference <——
As leaders meet in Munich to discuss the security situation, the Ukrainian president states that Moldova could be “strangled” by Moscow.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-zelensky-gives-dire-warning-to-munich-security-conference
Excerpts:
Zelensky: It’s obvious that Ukraine is not going to be [Putin’s] last stop,” Zelensky said. “He’s going to continue his movement all the way ... including all the other states that at some point in time were part of the Soviet bloc.” [Which would include half of Germany.]
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Zelensky: “Negotiations can begin when Russia withdraws its troops from the territory of Ukraine. Other options only give Russia time to regroup forces and resume hostilities at any moment.”
“If Putin wins in Ukraine, the message to him and other authoritarian regimes is that force is rewarded,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said this week. “That would make the world more dangerous. And all of us more vulnerable,” Stoltenberg added.
==
In a surprising announcement, Lukashenko said that Belarus was ready to start production of the Su-25 Frogfoot ground-attack aircraft, a type utilized heavily by Russia in the war against Ukraine. Provided Russia even wants more of these Cold War-era jets, long out of production, the idea seems highly fanciful, not least because almost all single-seat Su-25s were built in Georgia, not Russia. Two-seat trainer versions were built in Ulan-Ude, Russia, but the production line is long dormant and it’s not even clear if tooling exists that could be transferred to Belarus.
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According to the latest assessment from the U.K. Ministry of Defense, the convict-recruits deployed by the Wagner Group have probably experienced a casualty rate of up to 50 percent. This is just a part of overall Russian casualties in the conflict, which it now assesses as likely to be in the region of 175,000 to 200,000 since the start of the invasion of Ukraine. Among these, approximately 40,000 to 60,000 are thought likely to have been killed.
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While we’ve not been able to immediately verify the claims, it’s reported that the first examples of the AMX-10RC heavy armored cars from France are already in Ukraine. The transfer of these was secured at much the same time as the Marder infantry fighting vehicles from Germany and Bradley IFVs from the United States. It’s not yet confirmed exactly what version of the AMX-10RC is being supplied, but these 6x6 armored cars offer an interesting combination of relatively low all-up weight, but heavy armament - in terms of the primary gun system.
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Reporting from Ukraine:
https://www.youtube.com/@RFU
••Day 359.
Today a lot of vital changes happened in the Bakhmut region.
Here, after the Ukrainians conducted a counterattack, the Head of the Wagner forces said in an interview that the situation is very challenging and that they won’t be able to take Bakhmut for at least several more months.
But interestingly, a much bigger role here played an essential betrayal of the Russian Generals.
Last time, I told you that the Russians devoted a significant amount of resources to expanding control to the north of Bakhmut.
I also clarified that the Russians have not encircled Paraskoviivka and that the Ukrainians still control the situation and have enough room for a controlled withdrawal, which they would likely conduct the moment the Russians break through the primary line of trenched along the highway.
And this is exactly what happened today. Today at night, the Russians managed to push the Ukrainians out of the proximate tree belts, which shifted their defense toward the forest area.
This forest area was basically the last cover that the Ukrainians could use to withdraw from Paraskoviivka.
After rebuffing subsequent Russian attacks, the Ukrainians took advantage of the tactical pause and left Paraskoviivka.
Several hours ago, various Russian sources started publishing photos that confirmed that Paraskoviivka had changed hands.
This once again shows that the Ukrainians exert a lot of control over the situation, which allows them to continuously escape Russian cauldrons.
Nonetheless, the situation here has undoubtedly deteriorated.
The next Ukrainian line of defense goes through Dubovo-Vasylivka and Berkhivka.
If we look at the topographic map, we will also see that the Ukrainians control the hills right above these two villages.
This means that the Ukrainians can leverage the tree belts and forest areas to prevent the Russians from assaulting the villages.
And this is exactly what they are doing.
The Ukrainians are holding trenches on the hills, which allowed them to rebuff all Russian attacks towards Dubovo-Vasylivka.
However, Russian successes in Paraskoviivka have been offset by their losses in the southern part of the region.
As you remember, the Ukrainians here conducted a counterattack and pushed the Russians around 1.5 km back.
Today Russian sources finally confirmed this information as well and expressed concern that this was only the first wave.
And it looks like it is true because yesterday, the Ukrainians conducted a rotation of all troops in this region and are also moving in several additional fresh battalions.
The intensification of air reconnaissance which is mainly conducted by drones, also signals that the Ukrainians are analyzing Russian defenses in the forest.
And the fact that the Ukrainians started using their aviation more frequently signals that it will highly likely be engaged during the counterattack.
But this is not the only reason why the Battle for Bakhmut is far from being finished.
What is interesting, yesterday, the Head of the Wagner forces, Prigozhin, said that they are facing huge challenges and that the Ukrainians will continue holding Bakhmut not only till the anniversary of the war in February but also likely through the whole of March and maybe even April.
He essentially said that the Russian Ministry of Defense tried to make Wagners fail because they banned further recruitment of prisoners and they do not provide them with enough resources.
A day before this interview, footage appeared showing how Wagner forces were asking the Ministry of Defense to urgently give them ammunition.
The first reason why the Russian Ministry of Defense is purposefully degrading the most capable Russian units is the following - in the absence of their own achievements and in the light of a series of catastrophic operations near Vuhledar, Wagners simply make them look bad.
Wagner forces use a decentralized command, while regular Russian units use centralized command.
Russian generals do not want to implement decentralization because it takes away their power.
That is why all alternative structures are deemed expendable and are kept small.
The second reason is that the shortage of resources is actually real.
Right now, Russia is trying to kill two birds with one stone - conduct large-scale military operations without disrupting the internal ecosystem.
Russian factories physically cannot increase their output of military equipment and ammunition without total mobilization of the economy because they need to find, hire, and train a lot of people.
Russian difficulties with the revitalization of their military-industrial complex are very fortunate for the Ukrainians because its Western partners also have big problems with jump-starting their military-industrial complex, although here the reasons are a bit different.
[The video cleverly slides into an investment commercial at this point.]
==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPpYQuLW8T0
Denys says:
UK says Russian offensive takes meters, not kilometers at the cost of a lot of troops, and is generally ineffective.
Ukraine counter offensive will likely in in April and in the South.
Fears that Western powers will try to halt the UA Spring offensive by forcing negotiations basically on Russian terns.
He thinks Ukraine will get new fighter from the West this year - certainly MiG-29s, Typhoons and maybe F-16s.
Russia loses ~2000 troops per 100 yards - 90 meters. At that attrition rate, to get to the Plush border, Russia would use up all the men in Russia.
Russia captured a small village in the North near Kupiansk. A possible sign of a new big attack. But will the logistical and internal political difficulties, Russia cannot advance as rapidly as they did a years ago.
The daily losses on the Ukrainian side are much higher. The daily clobber list of the Russian Ministry of Defense mentions about 400 Ukrainians killed every day. This is consistent with the numbers Ukraine's government mentioned last summer and fall.
Over the 358 days of the war the total sums up to about 143,000. The Russian reports do not include the number of those who got killed by the Wagner mercenaries in the Bakhmut area. That number is by likely well above 20,000.
How Ukraine uses high-tech anti-drone guns to down Russian drones and recover intelligence from them
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraines-anti-drone-guns-down-russian-drones-recover-intelligence-2023-2